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Recycling Beverage Cartons - SIG's Holiday Tree

Writer's picture: ReeRee

The Challenges of Recycling Beverage Cartons

Recycling beverage cartons isn't as straightforward as it might seem. These cartons are made up of multiple layers of materials, including paper, plastic, and aluminum, which are tightly bonded together to create a lightweight, durable packaging solution. However, this very combination of materials makes them incredibly difficult to recycle.

  1. Complex Material Composition: The layers need to be separated before they can be processed, which requires specialized equipment and facilities not available in every recycling plant.

  2. Limited Recycling Facilities: There are very few recycling facilities in the UAE equipped to handle beverage cartons. This means many of these cartons end up in landfills instead of being recycled.

  3. Consumer Confusion: Many people are unaware that beverage cartons require special recycling processes. This lack of awareness leads to improper disposal and contamination of recyclable materials. Here at Ree we get a lot of them in the Paper recycling stream. Thankfully, due to our separating methods, we can remove them and put them into their own channel for recycling.

  4. High Costs: The process of separating and recycling the different layers is energy-intensive and costly, making it less economically viable for many recycling centres.

SIG's Recycled Holiday Tree Initiative

Over the past year we have partnered with SIG and Midori to create a solution for beverage cartons. For months we have been testing compositions and materials resulting in the first customer facing prototype - The SIG Christmas Tree


“As a leading packaging company, SIG has a responsibility to own its waste and continuously design packaging materials that are:

  1. Simplified, making them even easier to recycle.

  2. Renewable, using forest-based polymers and more sustainable materials.

  3. Circular, linked to recycled materials.

This approach drives our ability to partner with the right stakeholders to make ideas like the SIG Christmas Tree possible and pave the way for more innovative solutions.”

Nicola Wagstyl, Sustainability Expert - SIG


"At first glance, things like this might seem like they don’t move the needle on climate change. But the Christmas tree we made with SIG tells a different story. It’s 100% built from materials that no one else would ever recycle—stuff that would’ve ended up burned or dumped in a landfill.

Sure, it’s just one tree, but it’s a step in the right direction. And by the end of this year, we’re hoping to see thousands of these objects popping up all over the Middle East. It’s about bringing value back into use and showing how small actions, when combined, can actually make a big difference."

From waste to products - The process

The process starts with the initial production of the beverage carton and SIG are making great strides in producing sustainable packaging. This does not solve the issue of the packing already in circulation and the packaging from other big name producers. This is where Ree and Midori come in…


Ree were tasked with removing beverage cartons from General Waste and Paper recycling streams. This was through sorting the material we received at the Ree facility but also performing collections at events like the 2024 Gulfood Manufacturing.


The collected cartons are then shredded and combined with other recycled material, supplied by us, and turned into a board that can be cut and shaped. It’s taken some time to find out which types of additional material and ratio works best in creating a usable board.



Why does it matter?

By creating products that replace easily discarded materials, SIG is not just recycling, they are building a circular future. The tree will be brought out again next year and maybe be adorned with recycled beverage carton decorations.

SIG's ultimate goal is to reduce everywhere and this is only the beginning. 


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